Category: Characters
Articles on the written characters.
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Why Chinese New Year Never Falls on the Same Day
The traditional calendar counts months by the Moon and years by the Sun. The actual rule for New Year’s Day, from Taiwan’s official calendar…
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The Empty Boat: What Zhuangzi Actually Wrote
The empty boat parable, from the Mountain Tree chapter of the Zhuangzi, in Chinese and English — who says it, to whom, and how…
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Which Tao Te Ching Translation Is Best in English?
Seventeen English editions of the Tao Te Ching compared against the Chinese — which text each one translates, whether the characters are printed, and…
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Why Isn’t Taipei Spelled “Taibei”?
Taipei and Taibei are the same two syllables in two alphabets. How Wade–Giles, postal spellings and a written exception in Taiwan’s own rules kept…
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Taiwan Temple Etiquette: The Actual Rules
Enter by the dragon door, leave by the tiger. The actual rules of visiting a Taiwanese temple, checked against official sources.
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Mid-Autumn Barbecue: How Taiwan Rewrote the Moon Festival
Taiwan spends the Moon Festival grilling. The custom is barely fifty years old, and the famous advert story is only half true. Here is…
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Celebrities With Chinese Tattoos: What the Characters Actually Say
David Beckham’s rib tattoo quotes the Analects of Confucius — and gets two characters wrong. Shawn Marion asked for his nickname and walked out…
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Chinese Fortune Sticks: How the Temple Oracle Actually Works
What the numbered bamboo sticks in Taiwanese temples are, how a stick becomes an answer, and why fortune stick numbers have no universal meaning.
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Jiaobei: How Taiwan Asks the Gods a Yes-or-No Question
In every Taiwanese temple there is a basket of red wooden crescents, and all day long you can hear them hitting the floor. They…
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Chinese Tattoo Mistakes: The Five Ways a Character Goes Wrong
A Chinese character tattoo goes wrong in five distinct ways, and only one of them is the mistake people worry about. Getting the wrong…
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The Art of War Is Not a Business Book
The most quoted line of the Art of War in English business writing is “know yourself and know your enemy and you will win…
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Which Analects Translation Should You Read? Seven Editions Compared
There are more than a dozen English Analects in print and they disagree with each other on almost every line that matters. That is…
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Ghost Month in Taiwan: What Is Documented and What Is Just Repeated
Ghost Month is running in Taiwan as this is published. It began on 13 August and ends on 11 September, when the shrine doors…
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Dao or Tao? Why the Same Word Has Two Spellings
The book is called the Tao Te Ching and the concept is called dao. Both spellings are correct, they refer to exactly the same…